{"id":168819,"date":"2018-07-02T07:20:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T11:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=168819"},"modified":"2018-07-02T07:20:14","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T11:20:14","slug":"university-of-victoria-offers-online-glimpse-into-the-life-of-johnny-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/02\/university-of-victoria-offers-online-glimpse-into-the-life-of-johnny-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Victoria offers online glimpse into the life of Johnny Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Publicity<\/a>
Publicity still of Johnny Cash and Saul Holiff at a party at Holiff’s Hollywood apartment before the Hollywood Bowl show in 1962, with a copy of Cash’s recent record. Image courtesy of Holiff Family archives\/UVic Libraries<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VICTORIA \u2014 The\u00a0University\u00a0of\u00a0Victoria\u00a0has a new online exhibit\u00a0of\u00a0Johnny Cash memorabilia donated by the family\u00a0of\u00a0his longtime Canadian manager who pursued a history degree at the\u00a0university\u00a0after guiding the singer known as the Man in Black through his most turbulent years and breakthrough to international stardom.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0university\u00a0says fans and researchers can use the archive to get new insights from the perspective\u00a0of\u00a0Saul Holiff, whose scrapbook and audio diary\u00a0of\u00a0his days with Cash include rare photos\u00a0of the singer performing at Folsom prison and candid recorded telephone conversations about the music business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn’t be happier about this, mostly because it would have made my father very happy,\u201d said Jonathan Holiff, who discovered his father’s collection in a family storage locker in Nanaimo, B.C. \u201cHe always placed a supreme importance on education, and so I know he would be especially pleased and proud to have this a permanent collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibit, \u201cVolatile Attractions: Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash and Managing a Music Legend,\u201d is on display at the\u00a0university’s McPherson Library as part\u00a0of\u00a0its special collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is an amazing glimpse into Saul’s life from beginning to end,\u201d said Lara Wilson, the\u00a0university’s archivist and special collections director. \u201cHe was Johnny Cash’s manager at this very critical time where he played at Folsom Prison, got the television program and pushed Johnny to get out into so many venues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Holiff’s 2012 documentary \u201cMy Father and the Man in Black\u201d explored his relationship with his father and the parallels\u00a0of\u00a0his father’s life with Cash. He said the exhibit brings him closer to his father, who died by suicide in 2005.<\/p>\n

He said he found his father’s audio diaries deeply personal even though many conversations are between Saul Holiff and Cash. Also among the recordings are therapy-like sessions that Holiff conducted with himself, speaking at length\u00a0of\u00a0personal struggles with acceptance in the fast-paced entertainment world and his attempts to be a strong provider and father figure, his son said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made the greatest emotional impact on me because I was unexpectedly hearing my father’s voice,\u201d Holiff said. \u201cIt was very powerful to the extent I felt like my father was talking to me across the years. My father was a self-aware, flawed human being and he knew it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holiff said the exhibit also reveals the great extent to which his managerial duties involved having to smooth over the many scrapes the singer embroiled himself in during days\u00a0of\u00a0excessive alcohol and drug use in the 1960s and early 1970s.<\/p>\n

In Vancouver in 1961, Holiff covered the bill at the Hotel Georgia after Cash went on a rampage and smashed hallway chandeliers with a guitar.<\/p>\n

But the exhibit also includes details\u00a0of\u00a0Cash’s on stage marriage proposal to June Carter during a February 1968 concert at London, Ont., where Holiff was born. The proposal was included as a scene in the Hollywood movie \u201cWalk the Line\u201d about Cash and Carter.<\/p>\n

Samantha MacFarlane, a PhD student at the\u00a0university\u00a0who researched, designed and developed the online exhibit, said the scrapbook with its handwritten letters, reviews, photos, posters, brochures, and tour documents and receipts reveals the depth\u00a0of\u00a0the relationship between Holiff and Cash.<\/p>\n

In one handwritten note from Cash to Holiff dated 1961, the singer recounts a recent tour\u00a0of\u00a0the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust returned from the northwest. Very good,\u201d said Cash. \u201cAll time record crowd in\u00a0Victoria.\u00a0My first time there.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacFarlane said Holiff often brought Cash into Canada, starting with tours\u00a0of\u00a0northern Ontario and the Maritimes, but he had bigger plans for the singer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Saul who was really the one who had this grand vision,\u201d she said. \u201cSaul was basically instrumental in making Cash an international star because he had this vision for him playing these bigger venues and not just pigeon-holing him as a country star but really marketing him as this unique cross over performer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VICTORIA \u2014 The\u00a0University\u00a0of\u00a0Victoria\u00a0has a new online exhibit\u00a0of\u00a0Johnny Cash memorabilia donated by the family\u00a0of\u00a0his longtime Canadian manager who pursued a history …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":168820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[52515,52516,745,52517,10881],"class_list":["post-168819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-and-culture","tag-johnny-cash","tag-memorabilia","tag-music","tag-saul-holiff","tag-university-of-victoria","mauthors-dirk-meissner","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}